Lincoln senior wants to leave his mark on soccer program

STANFORD - This may or may not be Josh Unthank's final go-round on the soccer field, but the Lincoln County senior plans on leaving something behind.

Unthank is undecided on whether or not he'll continue his soccer career in college, but he wants to do a little coaching this year.

Lincoln's four seniors - Unthank, Doug Goens, Justin Kolasa and Doug Terry - will have even more pressure to be coaches on the field because the Patriots have a new coach on the sideline.

Lindsey Thurman has taken over the program despite never having coached soccer. Thurman didn't join the team until school started, and the Patriots were working out with a former player and several assistant coaches before he got there.

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"We had a person who was a senior my freshman year, John David (Smith), come back and work with us. Then coach (Wiley) Faw came and eventually the athletic director (Don Story) found us a coach, which was coach Thurman," Unthank said.

"It was kind of different because those of us that have played are kind of set in the same tone of playing with just one coach and an assistant. (Former) Coach (Tony) Cress was a big part of this team. We lost like eight seniors from last year's team. This year we've just got to really step up from what we learned from everybody else."

That's also what Unthank expects this year's young players to do. Unthank said the one thing he wants from this year is for the Patriots to come together as a team.

He's been pleased thus far, saying Lincoln has shown improvement.

"I expect (the freshmen) to keep up to par," Unthank said. "There have been times where they just really don't want to do anything. I just have to encourage them and so far it's been doing pretty well."

Unthank said he may or may not continue to play soccer in college. Now his attention is focused fully on accomplishing all he can in his senior season.

"I want my last year to be heartfelt and pleasurable," he said. "I want to get the most out of what I can do. I'm rather uncertain about what's going to happen after high school, but either way I'm just going to give it all I've got."

The Patriots have seven freshmen on their roster, several of which have never played soccer before. Unthank said it's up to him and the other three seniors to teach them the right way to do things before they leave.

"I want to be able to come back later and be able to see how much they've improved and know that a lot of it started with just what I taught them and what the other guys helped me teach them," Unthank said. "We've just got to pass on what we know to them so they can follow in our footsteps."